 Born (23 September 1970) and raised in Buffalo, New York to Elizabeth and Dante DiFranco, Ani started playing Beatles songs on her acoustic guitar in bars at the age of nine, wrote her first song when she was fourteen, became an emancipated minor at the age of fifteen, and graduated from high school at the age of sixteen. When she started her own record label (Righteous Babe Records, or RBR) four years later in 1990, she had over a hundred songs to choose from for her debut album.Ani started her own label sort of as a joke. She was approached by independent record labels early on, but when she saw that even the "indie" labels weren't as interested in music as much as they were in making money, she decided to release her music on her own - hence the the 800 number for RBR, 1-800-ON-HER-OWN. By cashing in her bank account and borrowing money from friends, she made her first album, which was really nothing more than a high-quality demo tape. She then started to slowly/surely amass her large, grassroots following by hawking this debut album around to various club owners and college groups out of the back of her car in order to get gigs; in no time her tape was being copied and spread around, especially in colleges, and Ani started getting more and more offers to play in various places. By releasing her own album like this, she created her own record label of sorts, and by paying fifty dollars to City Hall in Buffalo, she made Righteous Babe Records a reality in the legal sense. In the following eight years, Ani released eleven more albums (nine LP's, one EP, and a live double-LP), gaining a larger following with each one. The grassroots response to her albums brought lots of offers for shows, and Ani quickly progressed from coffeehouses and college theaters to large concert halls and major folk festivals. Contract offers were (and still are) pouring in from record labels of all sizes and agendas, but Ani has refused them all in an effort to avoid supporting "the system" and in order to be able to conduct her business on her own terms. Thus Ani is not just a singer/songwriter, guitarist, and poet; she also produces the albums, oversees and creates cover art, chooses the artists she works with, and determines her own output. Because Ani has complete control over her schedule, she is one of the most prolific musicians, releasing at the least one album a year since the creation of Righteous Babe.
Ani repeatedly rejects offers from major record labels to sign a contract because her point in creating her own record label was to keep from supporting the corporate industry. Ani says: "I'd rather be able to face myself in the bathroom mirror" than consciously support the corporate world. Becoming a star is not a goal for Ani - getting her music to people and sharing her life with them is her goal - and with RBR she wanted to (and did!) set up a "new model" for other artists to follow.
Although it doesn't do her justice one bit to generalize Ani's music, if one is to do so one can describe it as folk-punk, ranging from electric to acoustic, emcompassing many genres yet standing far apart from them simultaneously. Ani is a big fan of hip-hop music (and for a white girl, she's got some darn good rhythm ^_^), and she has been compared to Tori Amos, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Yoko Ono, Sinead O'Connor, and Billie Holiday. Ani calls herself a frustrated drummer, and indeed her approach to the guitar is very percussive, arrestingly beautiful and in-your-face poignant. In fact, Ani works her guitars so hard that during performances she has to wear extra-thick fake nails reinforced with duct tape to prevent her fingers from bleeding! If one sees her in concert, or even just listens to one of her albums, one KNOWS right away from the amazing guitar work that Ani's talent on the imstrument is immense. Trust me, I saw her in concert on Halloween night 1997 in Berkeley, and during no less than five songs I saw people around me with their jaws dropped, pointing and murmuring things like "oh, sh-t!" because they couldn't believe how fast and hard Ani was working her guitar with both hands - frankly, I couldn't believe it myself. ^_^ Ani's songs mostly feature just her on the guitar and the cute, Canadian-born Ukrainian Andy Stochansky, a drummer well versed in African percussion; the combination is strikingly unique and enjoyable. She has also toured with bassists Sara Lee (of the B-52's and the Indigo Girls) and Jason Mercer, and her later works feature more and more musicians. Ani's lyrics are just as phenomenal as her music; the lyrics, made excellent by her amazing sense of poetry, are pure autobiography. A true folk-singer, Ani says that the purpose of her music is to present parts of her own life which she considers universal, part of the human experience, in order to help others "get through their day" by letting them know they're not alone and as a way of saying "we're all in this together... so let's do it." Ani says her songs are "disgustingly sincere" and they are indeed, as well as being imbued with her massive musical and lyrical talents. She speaks openly/autobiographically about lost love, abortion, her bisexuality, sleazy men (and women) who want her only for her body, sexism, violence against women, and many other issues, both political and romantic. Hailed as a heroine and a goddess by many fans for the amazing power behind her songs, Ani openly abhors such treatment of herself, and continually emphasizes that just because she's "got a platform and microphone and lights" doesn't make her more important than others. She says that everyone has a story to share, and all she's doing is sharing her own, warts and all - it's not about money, or stardom: it's about sharing oneself. Indeed, her music does not only lay bare her positives but also her negatives, her defeats and vulnerabilities as well as her triumphs and strengths. In that sense, she is a true goddess, sharing herself, her complete human self, so completely to give comfort, strength, hope, music, and entertainment to anyone who is willing enough to take the time to listen to what she has to offer. Thanks, Ani!  here're some gorgeous pics of Ani:
a beautiful pic of Ani from the cover of Pulse |
Still under her own independent record label of which she is still "CEO," Ani was nominated for a Grammy in 1998; she has recently released Up Up Up Up Up Up - her thirteenth release in only nine years. Not to mention the fact that her release last year debuted at #22 on the Billboard charts. One has to agree that these are awesome feats for someone under her own record label. Ani's fast growing popularity and publicity can be attributed to her talent, her shockingly quick artistic growth, her prolific output, her heavy touring, and her many interviews, on radio and on television.
To anyone who doubts Ani's sincerity, the reader should note that Ani was a person who, a decade ago, drove around the country living out of her car and playing her songs in bars to six or seven people for twenty bucks a night. Even though she was being courted by record labels, she opted to be a true artist and refused their offers, preferring to live for her music and not for money, even at a time when she was living on subsistence level. Ani chose to let her music, her art, and her resultant fame develop on its own, and the plain fact that Ani is fast becoming internationally well-known with only the backing of Righteous Babe Records is testament to her enormous talent, hard work, and independent stand.
